ChainNet Visualizer

An interactive tool for exploring metaphors and metonyms in English.

Launch Visualizer

About

This tool visualizes semantic relationships between word senses, specifically metaphors and metonyms. These are types of regular polysemy — systematic patterns where words extend their meanings in predictable ways.

  • Metaphor (shown in purple): A meaning extension based on similarity. For example, mouth (body part) → mouth (of a river).
  • Metonymy (shown in orange): A meaning extension based on association. For example, chestnut (tree) → chestnut (nut from that tree).

How to Use

  1. Go to the visualizer
  2. Enter a word (lemma) in the search box
  3. Click "Fetch" to see its semantic network
  4. Nodes show word senses with definitions and pictograms
  5. Arrows show metaphorical or metonymic relationships
  6. Drag nodes to rearrange the layout

Try words like: chestnut, cherry, dog, chicken

Data Sources

This visualization is built on several linguistic resources:

  • ChainNet — A database of regular polysemy patterns in English, created by Rowan Hall Maudslay and colleagues.
    Hall Maudslay, R., Pimentel, T., Cotterell, R., & Teufel, S. (2024). ChainNet: Structured Metaphor and Metonymy in WordNet.
  • Open English WordNet — Provides sense definitions and synonyms via their JSON API.
    McCrae, J. P., Fellbaum, C., & Cimiano, P. (2017). Publishing and Linking WordNet using lemon and RDF.
  • ARASAAC — Pictographic symbols used to illustrate word senses.
    Pictograms by Sergio Palao for ARASAAC, licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.

Source Code

This project is open source: github.com/bond-lab/chainnet-viz